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Issue date: 2/26/08 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: journal.nonesuch. The eighth Magnetic Fields album is here and it sounds great. [Click to enlarge]

Stephin Merritt decided to throw his amps through a blender and then patch them back up with barbed wire and a love for shoegazing for the Magnetic Fields' eighth album "Distortion."

Do not panic though, not even the most malignant of studio technician tricks have been able to derail the sugar-coated melodies that are so closely knit to the Magnetic Fields.

The sound is broken and twisted, beautifully warped by reverb and, well, distortion, to create a wall of noise in the vein of Jesus and Mary Chain.

After the slow start that is "Three-way" the album really picks up with the second track, "California Girls." It is a fun, pompous showdown with the glitter glitz princesses of L.A., and is one of the catchiest songs on "Distortion."

One of the strongest songs on the album is "The Nun's Litany," a spunky ballad about a woman of the cloth who wishes she'd lived a more exciting life as perhaps a Playboy bunny or a dominatrix.

Lyrically, Merritt manages to strike a wonderful mix of the moronic, yet honest and sometimes downright hilarious for his writing. "To Drunk to Dream" comes to mind, which kicks off with a Gregorian chant contrasting the pros of being wasted and carefree and the cons of being sober and pining for love.

An obvious reason to why to "Distortion" works so well is that Shirley Simms is back at the microphone for a lot of the tracks. Simms voice, which also graced the Magnetic Fields classic "69 Love Songs", is the perfect foil to Merritt's morose baritone. The album closer "Courtesans" in particular stands out thanks to Simms.

The end result of the labors of the Magnetic Fields are these bittersweet little pills for songs that are the perfect remedy for a bad day. "Distortion" was released on Jan. 15 on Nonesuch.

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